The Communists in the South Strong Arm Stalinism Defeated in Review and Criticism our early preparations and possibly to luck.
Our mass meetings were stopped except in Charlotte where the first one held after the raids shows the workers 100 per cent behind us and a good defense corps ready for anything. While the black hunBy HUGO OEHLER dreds hal free reign for the following perThe corner of 125th Street and 5th Ave. iod we were daily going to mill locals in tworking class section, has been occupied the area and setting up an underground every Saturday night by speakers of the (9) By the time the new forces had crete situation as others of the Southern apparatus. The fact that we had over two Communist League of America (Opposiarrived, July 12th, Dunne, Wagenknecht, fraction were.
dozen mill locals, functioning well for such tion. New York branch, for two summers.
Drew, Martin and others had started the The right of self defense was a livin workers new at organization saved the day Every week, from two to four hundred work of reorganizing and preparing the reality with us and without it our organ and laid the basis for our comeback and workers have gathered regularly to hear ground for the defense of our leaders in izers were the dead force. However, the also prevented the black hundreds from our point of view on current questions.
jail. The worst of the reaction had subthe situation in the field and the slogan driving us out of the whole area. The The neighborhood being well populated by sided and the new cycle was well on its as a national one to rally broad masses of secret mill local meetings were the reasons Russian White emigres also, our speakers way. This followed the indictments and all shades of political beliefs in the work for the mob follow up in small bands. They have constantly been confronted with their called for organization around this issue.
ers camp for the one big issue was against aimed to stop them, to get the speakers and hecklers who attempt to influence the Our main office had been moved to Charthis frame up and the self defense issue organizers, break up the work for October workers against Communism and the Russ.
lotte, a larger town some thirty miles should havs nationally been a secondary 12 13 and defeat our work for the next from Gastonia. We collected the scattered ian workers republic. Their atacks were issue regardless of what the reality of our trial. They succeeded in taking Cleo Tessforces, issued dues cards to new members always easily met by our comrades, alconcrete meetings were. This is not an ener, our King Mt. organizer out on the and started collecting initiation from new though the White guards persiet, and reexcuse for me just facts but does not night of September 18.
members and dues from old ones. The cently have begun to throw water bags justify the position. More harmful than Fair progress under these difficult conEessemer City and Gastonia meetings were this was the united front camand tomatoes from the roofs and windows.
enlarged and spread over the entire area ditions was being made for the Saturday paign we will deal with later.
At the last few meetings, however, the to every mill town, step by step in an orcounter attack of our forces. Each night texThe Mt. Holly picnic was a huge sucganized fashion.
White guard scum has found an unexpected Organizational work of tile workers from locals in the rea took establishing mill locals was started. Our cess and the second trial ended with a ally in the attempt to break up our meetturns and sacrificed the night as guards mistrial inge retrospection will show we near the jail in Charlotte where our comfirst objective was a conference at BesseThat ally consists of a couple of mer City July 28, a day before the opening followed up the attacks of the bosses first rades were prisoners to prevent another hooligans, parading under the name of the of the trial.
degree charge with not one victory but a attempt to lynch them. The action of the official Comfunist party, who try to break (j) We readily realized that the techseries of victories and consolidated our police in the immediate preceeding period up the meetings by violence. On July 26th, forces in this area and extended agitation proved not to us, who were already conwhen only four of our comrades were prenical situation of the was a handally in many other centers of the South. vinced) but to the textile workers. that sent at the meeting a gang of 30 40 Stalinicap, that our National Office was in a bad (10) By the end of August the leading they could not be depended upon and this ist hoodlum commenced a concentrated shape a reflection already of the new field fraction committee could feel in law was the bosses law and not our law.
line of mechanical swing from the reacfire or shouting. booing, heckling and disOur progress for Saturday received a tionary unions to new unions.
creased action and plans against us, a turbance while contrades Jane and Max Rose According to our constitution all applications must be preparation of the bosses for a drive on big set back on September 12 when the were speaking in defense of the Soviets sent to from the South and they made us. Our feeling was based on daily obser Charlotte police raided our organizers which were being calumniated by the out dues cards and mailed them back.
vation and reports from the field. The full house one block from the jail, took our Whitex. Towards the end of the meeting, In stable. well functioning locals this may fraction was put on a military base to the weapons and ammunition of defense, ar they made a rush for the platform, one or work but not in company mill towns dlellke and protest of several of the frac rested comrade Saul, Martin and five others two of them mounted it to shout a few of where all mall is the first pick of the tion members who joked about it. We pre and charged them with attempt to over. the stock slogans against Trotskylgm they bosses and, more important, when we were pared according to conditions and on Sep throw the government of This charge learned from Browder, and then disappearin the middle of a drive, recruiting new tember 9th, Saturady afternoon a mob of did not get to first base but it had its ed into the night.
several hundred, overseers, bosses and part desired effect of disorganizing our force members by the hundreds, who prized the The following week, August 2, another dues book more than anything and a drive of the committee of 100 included with the and taking our defense weapons while the law protection, with rifles, clubs and black hundreds were arming everyday for among new recruits to union organization group of Party members, accompanied by of any kind. Why the force before the same drunken individual who had led Saturday blackjacks assembled at a meeting place in allowed this method to continue and hamSouth Gastonia, chased all comers away From the governor to the policeman the assault the week before, appeared at the law and order program was a policy per their work do not understand.
and attacked a speaker car and beat up the meeting while comrade Max Shachtman We the occupants.
found over 500 dues books piled up at our It was the beginning of of hands off the bosses black hundreds and For was speaking to some 400 workers.
Charlotte office and hundreds of disgusted the open drive on us. The speakers were search and seizure of the textile workers over an hour, this young bully carried on a lucky to get out with such little damage.
workers because they waited so long for a old rusty hunting guns. The policy was in disgraceful shouting down of the speaker, This brought home a warning and the book and did not get any. In normal times well oiled shape Saturday when the bands who was explaining the reasons for the the delay would be too much for such reality of the situation to the rest of the of the bosses black hundreds of overseers, Fish Committee investigation of Comdrives. We soon put an end to this method.
comrades. We prepared to answer this foremon, hired gunmen and reactionary or munism. He was evidently trying to whip The Bessemer City Conference rolled with a mass meeting there, our regular ganization forces rode every road in and the Party members present into a frenzy, around and showed: Saturday one the next week and with a around Gastonia in high powered cars with preparatory to rushing the platform again, week mobilization for it. Monday the guns held high. In every mill town they but his conduct was so scandalous that We had the textile workers of the mistrial brought the second trial to an end dispersed the textile workers headed for when Shachtman asked the other Party whole area behind us with a couple of and that night the black hundreds rode led So. Gastonia when possible. This culmin members if they agreed with his actions, hundred delegates, mainly from the Gasby Butwinkle and Solicitor Carpenter, swept ated in the murder of Ella May, a murder tonia area and over 1, 500 workers attendthey answered publicly in the negative!
three counties, raided three offices, looked committed by the mill owners, their police, The White Guards assisted the Stalinist ins.
everywhere for all organizers they could the Governor force and their thugs to car2. The delegation, all American born hooligan by continuing to throw waterlay hand on, destroyed records they could ry out the work. The other organizers who workers accepted our program unanimousbags and vegetables from concealed spots, ly through policy and not mechanical confind and kidnapped Wells, Saylors and Lell took part in the Saturday attempt to get until the workers in the audience, outraged and were not fortunate in obtaining the to So. Gastonia ended with their narrow trol.
by the arrogance of the disrupter, helped others or our main records due mainly to (k)
escape.
The Southern fraction failed to our contrades remove him fromthe scene.
obtain any Negro delegates to the convenOther Party members remained, and tion, even after some were elected.
together with non Party workers, asked The parade in Gastonia that the center numerous questions in a comradely manner.
informed us to call off for fear of a riot They realized that the conduct of the diswas agreed to by us, but had been the Continued from Page 1)
dustries and establishes worker control. rupter only discredited Communism and last one to accept it and as far as my The agrarian revolution by itself cannot conditions in China cried out for indepenthe in the eyes of the workers.
knowledge goes the prisoners were the solve the problems of the Chinese revoludent Communist leadership, for the arming The tactics of some Stalinists, inspired by first to protest the idea of the parade.
tion It can only be one phase of the of the workers and peasants, for the unleashtheir leaders, of roving the streets in search Following the Bessemer City successful struggle against world imperialism.
ing the forces of revolt in the cities and the The conference came a change of venue to Charof workers meetings to break up only ends, country side against both the Chinese and national unituon of China and its cue as it must, in alienatting every honest lotte for August 26th. The Bessemer conthe foreign bourgeoisie. In the name of toms independence that it the monopoly of worker from the Party.
ference had instructed all members to be foreign trade, will be used in under the the democratic dictatorship which could present in court Monday morning and the The Opposition, of course, will connot be skipped and the bloc of all classes, dynamic action of the proletaria hot day found our forces well represented tinue to hold its meetings in public, to dein Gastonia that whole day and a packed the Stalin Bucharin regime worked hand There is no short cut to the revfend them against White Guard Russians in hand with the courtroom mostly of textile workers in Kai She and olution. The easy ways of opportunism and even against Stalinists when that is their working clothes.
Wang Chin Weis to stifle the mass move and putschism prove in the end the longest necessary.
The unions and other organizations coTo the extent that the Stalin re ways. The need of the hour in China is operating intensified our work in the comgime is responsible for the leadership of to rally the masses against the counterthe present Communist armies. Com revolutionary ruling bourgeois cliques. The ing weeks and the union picnic of August CORRECTION ON CHINA 25th at Mt. Holly was jointly with the premunist today and with Feng or Chiang to. Communist Party must root itself again in The Militant is glad to correct a false Jiminary conference a day before morrow) it is guilty of hindering the real the industrial proletariat, cement its al impression it left in a previous issue conthe second trial, We progressed in the mobilization of the masses for the class liance with the poor peasantry and organ cerning the groupings within the Chinese following activity. Plans were well under struggle.
ize the great masses around a program of Communist movement. Our attention was way for the Charlotte October 12 13 conpartial demands with the Constituent Asscalled to it by comrade Niel Sih who wrote vention of the newly organizod district as The correctness of the Opposition embly as the focal point. And the strugus from Shanghai: By the way, a misthe outgrowth of the Bessemer conference. There is deep discontent and acute suf gle against foreign imperialist interventake is made by you in saying that the Our literature covered the whole field and fering in the country. How great the rev tion, a hindrance to any revolutionary progChinese Left Opposition published the orthe South. The Labor Defender and the olutionary tidal wave was when the Rus ress, must be taken up in earnest.
gan The Proletarian. In fact, it is the Daily Worker played an invaluable role. sian Opposition wrote its platform, and how MAURICE SPECTOR Right Opposition group, led by Chen DuThe youth organizers from the North were Siu (former secretary of the who correct was its prognosis is evidenced by pressed into union work to such a degree publishes The Proletarian. The Our Word the fact that three years after the crushing COMUNICACIONIT that their own field was neglected.
group which wrote to you that they would They of the Canton insurrection and the indusmade excellent fighters. Mass union ineetpublish the Proletarian never realized its trial proletariat, the movement of 1920 KLORKEIT NO. ing and local union meetings, closed and plan until this name was adopted by the still finds a belated echo on the countryopen were held in all mill towns. we had Note that the fourth number of Klorkeit. Right Opposition group which is now maskside. Put the peasantry is no independent ing itself in three to four in progress each night. The Left Opposition phrases.
social force. Its liberation from landlord organ of the Jewish Left Opposition group The three chief currents in the Opposition number of mill locals increased with our ism and feudal elements, the nationaliza in Franco, has arrived. It contains among movement in China are the ultra Left Our work. 1) By this time the slogan of frametion of the land and its redistribution con Word, the Left October group, and the other articles the fourth installment of be achieved as the Russian revolution demRight Proletarian.
up was changed to self defense an. supported Dunne on this. In the field, covering onstrated, neither in alliance with the bour comrade Trotsky The Third Period of meetings every day, meetings of determined geoisie nor by its own independent action, the Mistakes of the Comintern.
If the number on your wrapper 18 workers who were only able to hol tliese but in alliance with and under the leadership of the industrial proletariat. The demoSend orders and funds to meetings each time we first organized a force strong enough to let the boss know cratic revolution, the essence of which is THE MILITANT he had better not attack us; and with the agrarian revolution, can, in other then your subscription to the Milltant has 25 Third Avenue New York, defense committees organized around each words, be realized only by the socialist dic.
expired. Renew immediately in order to meeting was carried away with the contatorship, which nationalizes the basic inhacCM SCOTCHERCHE avoid missing any issues, What Going On in China?
ment.
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